The Lichfield Garrick Theatre announced a brand-new venture with local children’s book author, Jessica Radford, on Thursday 18th July 2024. The theatre is thrilled to be working with Jessica and providing a platform for her creativity. Jessica is the creator and author of a series of books called The Animal Advisors; which all feature animals, are fun and educational and address topics that we all face every day in the modern world no matter our age (i.e. perseverance, body image, mental health etc.) Jessica hopes to reach as many children as possible with her positive, uplifting messaging.
The first book of the series The Squirrel Who Couldn’t Balance, will form the basis of this partnership. The theatre’s Community Engagement team will be offering workshops based on the book and its themes to local schools, which will roll out in Autumn 2024. In November 2022, the book was read by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, on her YouTube channel: Storytime with Fergie and Friends. Jessica also worked with ‘The Buddy Bag Foundation’, who assist children who find themselves in emergency care, often after fleeing violent situations at home. Jessica did a fundraiser with the foundation, providing 175 copies of The Squirrel Who Couldn’t Balance, which were given to children, and read by social workers to many of the affected children.
In a bid to continue this fantastic work, Jessica continues to work on the book series, when she isn’t at her day job, and is planning to publish the third book of the series later this year. Jessica reached out to the theatre following their callout for partnerships with influencers, and the theatre were thrilled to share goals and values with her that presented a wonderful opportunity to go out into the community with her work.
The theatre has now announced that they will be pre-recording a video storytime reading of The Squirrel Who Couldn’t Balance (recommended reading age 5 to 7 years old). The video will be available to stream on all Lichfield Garrick social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok) from Friday 9th August 2024 at 4.00pm, on National Book Lovers Day. The book will be read by Sophie Allen, the theatre’s Community Engagement Officer with pyjamas and cuddly toys aplenty. The video will be completely free-of-charge to anyone, anywhere to enjoy from the comfort of your own home.
Manisha Chauhan, Marketing and Communications Officer at the theatre says “This is an incredibly exciting project, and an opportunity to provide access to the arts to as many people, families and children as possible, across the nation and the world no matter what their circumstances may be. This is part of our ongoing commitment to reach more people and communities with the arts and engagement activities. It is more important than ever that everyone can have the arts in their lives, whether it is through music, dance, theatre or anything else, to promote creativity and confidence, and give us all different ways to learn and to express ourselves”.
Jessica Radford says “I am so excited to be teaming up with Lichfield Garrick Theatre! My book series, ‘The Animal Advisors’ aims to promote good mental health in children, so the fact that one of my books will be used in workshops in schools as part of their role as an arts charity is such an amazing opportunity for my messages to reach as many children as possible. The theatre will also be providing a free reading of my book ‘The Squirrel Who Couldn’t Balance’ at 4pm on Friday 9 August, available on all their social media platforms, what a great way for families to access my story! Thank you to Lichfield Garrick Theatre for inviting me to be part of this wonderful collaboration, I can’t wait to see where it will lead!”
Get ready for this exciting online experience by following the Lichfield Garrick Theatre on their socials: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. You can find out more about Jessica and purchase her book on her website, and follow her on Instagram to stay up to date.
